1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to video processing and more particularly to tracking depth of an image and/or a marker associated with the image to provide real time motion capture for video game applications.
2. Description of the Related Art
Movies, video games and other related video productions capture distance and dimension information. With respect to movies, an actor or sport figure's moves may be separately captured. For example, a sport figure may be filmed by a plurality of cameras while performing an activity. Objects, i.e., balls, attached to the sport figure enable the tracking of the moves. The tracked movements are then stored in a database for later use in a movie or video game. The movements may be played back by running through the frames of the stored movements in the database.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a person having a plurality of balls distributed over their body to store the persons moves. Person 100 has a plurality of balls 102 distributed over their body. Person 100 will then perform some activity which is captured by a plurality of cameras 104. The captured video data may then be edited as desired to define video data 106. Video data 106 is then stored in database 108 for later retrieval for insertion into a movie.
The scheme described with respect to FIG. 1 works well for a controlled environment, such as movie editing, where real time motion capture is not needed. In addition, since the person's movements are captured and stored, the person only has to wear the balls once. However, the motion capture as described with respect to FIG. 1 is used in a passive sense, i.e., editors insert the stored movement into a movie while editing the movie. Thus, the captured movement does not control any aspects of the movie and is inserted into a movie at a later time. The same holds true for a video game, i.e., captured motion is not used to control any aspects of a video game. In part, the complex computational capabilities and the need for point by point scanning has prohibited the use of captured motion to act as a control in real time.
As a result, there is a need to solve the problems of the prior art to provide a method and apparatus for providing real time motion capture that is capable of controlling aspects of a video game such as object and character movements.